My Story

Gene Banks – A Duke Legend

Gene Banks is a native of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was a high school scholastic All-American in 1977. The National Writers Association of America voted Gene “Co-National Player of the Year” along with Ervin “Magic” Johnson and his high school team (West Philadelphia High School) was voted “Scholastic USA National Champs” with a record of 30 wins and no loses his senior year. His high school honored him in retiring his number 20 uniform. Gene later chose Duke University over 300 plus universities and colleges in the United States and as a freshman, led them to the National Collegiate Athletic Association Championship game. While at Duke he led them to two ACC Championships, and was voted All-American his junior and senior year. He finished second all-time in scoring and finished in the top ten of almost every statistical category. He was the ACC Rookie-of-the-Year, ACC First and Second Team and the ACC Scoring League Champion. Gene was voted into the Duke University Sports Hall of Fame and the Duke Wall of Honors. Gene was recently inducted into the ACC Hall of Fame in the Greensboro Coliseum on March 15th, 2014.

Gene received a B.A. degree in History and was the commencement speaker for the Class of 1981’ graduation at Duke University.

Gene was drafted by the NBA San Antonio Spurs (28th Pick) and played four seasons with the Spurs along side Hall of Fame great George “Iceman” Gervin and Artis Gilmore. He scored a career-high 44 points against the Los Angeles Lakers and finished with an average of 15.9 points per game. Gene was later traded to the Chicago Bulls and joined up with the great Michael Jordan, where he was a starter for three seasons and considered one of the best defensive players in the league.

Gene also played and coached over seas for over eight years in countries such as France, Italy, Israel, Peru, Greece, Belgium and Argentina. He developed The Gene Banks League of Greensboro, North Carolina. This league is geared to under-privileged youth, using sports and academics. He had taken up acting and was chosen to play a key role in the movie “Eddie”; starting Whoopi Goldberg. Gene also created the new City Legends of Philadelphia that gears toward supporting past legends, community and city social issues. He has worked as a color commentator for the Fosstone Productions of the HTS National Network and the MEAC conference and created a sports magazine- Carolina Sports in the state of North Carolina. Gene was the NCAA Compliance Officer and Head Women’s Basketball coach at Bluefield State University and then went on to be the Athletic Director and Head Women’s Basketball coach at Bennett College. Gene served as assistant coach and scout, with the NBA Washington Wizards, and is now working on his foundation while scripting his life story which will be titled - “Tinkerbell”.